


Back To School Again

by YesIsAWorld



Series: (Not Really) Grease AU [2]
Category: Niall Horan (Musician), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternative Perspective, Childhood Friends, Crushes, M/M, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13407051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesIsAWorld/pseuds/YesIsAWorld
Summary: It’s the first day of senior year: something weird is going on with Nick and Louis, there’s a spark of possibility for rekindling a friendship, and Niall is very distracted by Hot Luke. Niall’s got a big year ahead of him.





	Back To School Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gettingaphdinlarry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gettingaphdinlarry/gifts).



> This was written for the POV prompt from the No Excuses fic writer's meme [on tumblr](http://louandhazaf.tumblr.com/post/169796900663/no-excuses-weme-askbox-version). "POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective."  
> [Gettingaphdinlarry](http://gettingaphdinlarry.tumblr.com/) requested the lunch scene from "These Summer Nights" from Niall's POV. 
> 
> Huge thank yous to [gettingaphdinlarry](http://gettingaphdinlarry.tumblr.com/) for both requesting this and then not complaining when I put you to work betaing it. I'm so glad you're there to make me think about things a little differently.
> 
>  
> 
> **Please do not post this fic or any of my other fics on any other websites. I'm not currently allowing translations either. Thank you for respecting my wishes.**

Niall drags his crinkle-cut fry—the worst of the fries—through the blob of ketchup on his tray. Over the din of the lunchroom he’s still thinking back to earlier in the day when he ran into Louis and ‘Hot Luke’ (as Niall called him in his head) in the bathroom. Louis jutted his thumb toward Luke, and casually said, “Niall, you know my friend Luke, right?” As if Niall hadn’t been pining after Luke since he moved here in 7th grade, as if he and Louis still talked. Luke (just ‘Luke,’ Niall didn’t think it was appropriate to think of him as ‘Hot Luke’ after being introduced) blinked at Louis, like _he_ was caught in headlights, then ducked his head and beelined to the sinks, where he studiously scrubbed his hands as Louis grilled Niall about Nick. 

“How’s Nick?” Louis asked. 

“Grimshaw?”

Louis raked a hand through his hair. “Yeah?”

“Fine?” Of all the things Niall could’ve imagined them someday talking about, Nick was not high on that list. Niall wasn’t even aware they knew each other.

“Oh, uh. Okay.” Louis hung back as Niall stepped up to the sink next to Luke’s. Luke, who was still washing his hands. “How’s your family?” Louis broke the awkward silence.

“Good. They’re good. Yours?”

“Good, yeah, everyone’s good.”

Good. Niall dried his hands on his jeans. “Good to see you,” he said as he moved toward the door. 

“You too. Hey, and if you see Nick, can you tell him I said hi?”

“Uh, I guess. Yeah.” Niall waved goodbye to Louis only, since Luke was clearly going to spend the rest of the morning soaping up his hands. 

Niall dips another fry in ketchup. He has to ask Nick what all that meant. 

“Shut up.” Harry smacks Liam’s arm. “He’s coming this way.”

Niall freezes while bringing the fry to his mouth, the tang of ketchup heavy on his tongue. He joked enough times about them finally being cool senior year that he’s fully expecting the host of a hidden camera prank show to leap out and mock him for thinking that any of today’s events could actually happen to him in real life. “I’m serious, how did we end up on his radar?”

Louis walks up to their table like it was an everyday occurance, like the rest of the lunch room hadn’t paused to see what was going to happen next. Louis’ friends are all bunched along the wall, craning to see too.

“Hi Nicholas. Niall.” Louis waves to the rest of the table.

Niall still couldn’t really get over the fact that Louis remembered he existed. They had been joined at the hip as kids and then grew apart in as their interests diverged. There hadn’t been any big blow out to end their friendship, just less hanging out after school, and then less talking during school when they weren’t in any of the same classes, and finally years had gone by without them even smiling in the hallway as they passed. Best friends turned to strangers in a blink of an eye. It was easy to forget they once knew each other at all.

“Don’t call him that,” Harry snaps.

The smile falls from Louis face, a wrinkle appears between his eyebrows. “Oh, why? Do you not like—”

“If you hadn't ignored his existence for eleven years then maybe you’d know that,” Harry continues.

“It’s fine.” Nick’s blushing down to his chest. If the situation wasn’t so tense, Niall would definitely be roasting him for that.

Louis turns pink too and Niall has never, ever, seen him look this nervous. “Sorry. Didn't mean… I… I didn't know.”

“What do you want?” Nick asks.

Louis looks around the table. He catches Niall’s eye before dropping his gaze. Then he motions to a corner of the lunchroom. “Can we talk for a minute?”

Niall is tired from staying up late worrying about the first day of school and today has been weirder than anything he could’ve dreamed up and he won’t stand for being in the dark about what’s going on. “Anything you can say to him, you can say in front of us,” Niall says. There was a time when he would’ve known exactly what Louis was up to, what he was thinking.

“Witnesses…” Zayn says under his breath.

Louis looks surprised. He looks over at Niall again. “Oh, didn't know anyone knew. Right, um…”

Nick grips Niall’s thigh under the table and Niall suppresses an unmanly squeak of pain. “No, we can…” Niall slides his hand into Nick’s and squeezes. Nick’s got this. Niall’s thigh will live to see another day.

Louis puffs out his chest. “No, this is better, maybe? I'm not, like, embarrassed or whatever you guys must think.”

Since this is clearly something between Nick and Louis, Niall bites down on what he wants to say. _We’re not embarrassing to hang around. I’m the same person I was before. If you gave us a chance, we could be friends again._ He hadn’t realized how much he missed Louis before this and he swallows harshly, wills away his impending tears. He turns his head, catches Louis’ friends still watching.

Catches Luke’s eyes, before he ducks toward Calvin. Luke and Calvin exchange a few words and then Calvin catches Niall’s eye, smiles, and elbows Luke in the ribs. Luke looks up quickly and this time smiles and possibly giggles—that seems more impossible than anything—and doesn’t look away when Niall smiles back. What The Fuck?

Niall’s thrown back into reality for a moment when he realizes Louis is still talking, “... really want to be your boyfriend.” Niall gasps, then laughs when he hears that everyone has made the same noise. He tries to stop laughing. He really really does and it kind of works. He’s quiet enough at least that Louis is plowing on uninterrupted, even as his friends show up and pull him away.

Luke sort of stands off to the side, just watching as Niall tries to get himself under control. It’s easier this way, he doesn’t need Luke to think of him as an inappropriately laughing lunatic.

“Lewis?” Liam asks.

Right. Yes. Louis. And Nick. What the fucking fuck. He wasn’t even sure that Louis was interested in guys.

Nick seems just as perplexed. “I didn't think… that's not how life works. He and his friends were supposed to bully me this year, that's what happens in the movies…”

“Was he good to you?” Zayn asks.

“Yeah, he’s uh, nice.”

It’s nice to hear that he hadn’t changed too much either. Niall remembers him always being really, really nice.

Nick continues, “It was—the summer was perfect. I'm not supposed to get this in real life though.”

Harry, of course, is the first to connect the dots to the logical conclusion. “You lost your v-card—”

“Oh my god, you guys have to stop calling it that.”

Harry keeps going, “You lost it to Louis Fucking Tomlinson? Holy fucking shit. How was it? Is the rumor true? Is he hung?”

Gross.

“In no universe am I ever going to answer any of those questions.”

Thank god.

Niall looks back over to Louis and his friends. Luke, mostly, who this time flushed and gives the tiniest of waves, more a fluttering of fingers, at Niall.

“Hey Nick,“ Zayn says. Niall needs new friends, ones that won’t interrupting him from thinking about how nice Luke would look in a tux, on his wedding day, getting married to Niall. Niall squeezes Nick’s hand when Zayn says, “Might want to go get your boy.”

“Yeah, fuck.” Nick stands up.

Or maybe he’ll keep these friends, the odds are looking pretty good that he’ll get to rekindle an old friendship as well… and maybe, just maybe, it’ll work out that he’ll get himself a boyfriend too.

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's a shareable tumblr link if you liked it! xx](http://louandhazaf.tumblr.com/post/169852261433/title-back-to-school-again-author-yesisaworld)


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